David Sumpter

Professor of Applied Maths and Author. Co-founder and data scientist at Twelve football.

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

AIAIAI is this Tuesday afternoon in Uppsala, and there is still room.

Otema Yirenkyi and Kweyakie Afi Blebo on AI talent in Africa. Victoria Sitati on data science in the age of agents. Mikael Johnsson of Oxx on where software goes next.

https://t.co/gx7tqI63hA

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Third speaker at AIAIAI in Uppsala on 20 October: Victoria Sitati.

She coordinates Kujenga, a six-week maths and AI course running on seven African campuses at once — and is asking what you need to know to work in data science in the age of agents.

https://t.co/gx7tqI63hA

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

I explain context engineering with Fighting Fantasy books.

You pick "fight the dragon" or "run away" and turn to a different page. Function calling is the same: the model picks a route, which decides what it sees.

Monday 12 October, 19:00 UK.

https://t.co/S3LkktPvcN

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Most of our work at Twelve these last two years has gone into the shape of the answer: which numbers matter for the question in front of someone, what sits alongside them, how much to say, where to stop.

Masterclass Monday 12 October, 19:00 UK.

https://t.co/S3LkktPvcN

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Second speaker at AIAIAI in Uppsala on 20 October: Mikael Johnsson, co-founder of Oxx, investing since the dot-com boom.

Most events about AI and Africa have the researchers in the room and the money somewhere else. This one has both.

https://t.co/gx7tqI63hA

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

You know a log-rank test compares survival between groups. Knowing that has never once produced a p-value.

Generative AI writes you plausible Python and hands it back. An agent installs the package, runs it, reads the error and fixes it.

https://t.co/ejrBZRDO3H

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

The people in football with the best ideas about what to build are usually the ones who cannot build it.

Vibe Coding for Football starts 9 November — turning ideas into working apps with AI, for people with no coding background.

Free webinar Wednesday.

https://t.co/EJExhQzq2h

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

These tools do not have ideas of their own. They take an idea you already have and formulate it clearly, straight away.

Writing is how I find out whether I understood something. Some of the joy of explaining my own thoughts has gone.

https://t.co/IpUiBuMZD2

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Football analytics still begins with getting a file into the right shape.

Football Python 360 starts 12 October — for coaches, scouts, analysts and journalists rather than programmers.

Free webinar Wednesday on how it all fits together.

https://t.co/EJExhQzq2h

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

The richest Premier League clubs will have ten to fifteen data scientists by the middle of next year.

For a decade the bottleneck was not the analysis. It was that nobody above them was listening.

Free webinar Tuesday on how to get into this.

https://t.co/EJExhQzq2h

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

On 20 October we are putting on a free afternoon in Uppsala on AI and African innovation.

Otema Yirenkyi and Kweyakie Afi Blebo of Because She Can are speaking. They have reached over 10,000 women and girls in 17 African countries.

https://t.co/gx7tqI63hA

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Are Kenyan runners faster than Ethiopian runners? Ten race times from each gives t = −3.52, p = 0.0013.

Then the histogram: the two distributions sit almost on top of each other. Plenty of Ethiopians are quicker than plenty of Kenyans.

https://t.co/w2oRqS10wa

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

From Four Ways of Thinking: the time for the first 3% to see a meme is the same as the time for the other 97% to find out.

Same doubling as a virus. When you hear about something, that is usually the moment everybody else does.

https://t.co/lRbDviLg9L

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

The Vicsek model has fish at constant speed. Real fish burst and glide. Both are used, they contradict each other, and that is fine.

Maths biology got good at analysing models and shy about inventing them.

Drawings by Linnéa Gyllingberg.
https://t.co/S5uI1xvQHW

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Soccermatics, 2016: scouts sorted a spreadsheet by tackles. Row A was N'Golo Kanté at Caen. Leicester paid £5.6m, won the league, sold him for £32m.

Today the data is a download and the sorting is one click. The work moved to building the columns.

https://t.co/k8Wbkcfqtq

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Twelve and Training Ground Guru run a community for people working in football analytics. Six masterclasses this autumn — data engineering, predicting outcomes, tactical formations, context engineering, Amazon, and building a data team.

https://t.co/S3LkktPvcN

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

The skill that gets people hired in football analytics is making a picture somebody will act on.

Maram AlBaharna put her visuals online and it took her to The Athletic, then Manchester City. Son of a Corner publishes the tutorial with the shot map.

https://t.co/2v2DYfQcAV

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

What we are building with Kujenga, Akwaaba and Framtid is a loop.

Six weeks of maths and AI on your own campus. Then two or three months of research in Europe. Then home, to tutor the next intake and write the modules.

https://t.co/gFX1YpUree

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

Ask Claude or Codex to p-hack and both refuse: misconduct. Say your career depends on it and they still refuse.

Reword it as reporting uncertainty and they search hundreds of specifications, picking on significance. −0.06 comes back −0.194, p<0.001.

https://t.co/zQP4Wx9IU3

[David Sumpter @Soccermatics]

We work alongside dozens of clubs. When one needs something Earpiece does not do, we build it for them. Once enough need the same thing, it goes into the product — so by then we know it will be used.

August: shortlists become shadow teams. Team Pro for now.